Month: November 2016

Judith Curry says This paper explores ways to understand, assess, and reason about uncertainty in climate science, with specific application to the IPCC assessment process. Section 2 describes the challenges of understanding and characterizing uncertainty in dynamical models of complex systems, including challenges to interpreting the ensemble of simulations for the twenty-firstcentury climate used in the IPCC assessment reports. Section 3 addresses some issues regarding reasoning about uncertainty and examines the treatment of uncertainty by the IPCC Assessment Reports. Section 4 addresses uncertainty in the detection and attribution of anthropogenic climate change. And finally, section 5 introduces some ideas for monster taming strategies at the levels of in

Curry is the co-author of Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans (1999), and co-editor of Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences (2002), as well as over 140 scientific papers. Among her awards is the Henry G. Houghton Research Award from the American Meteorological Society in 1992.

Regarding climate change, she thinks that the IPCC reports typically neglect what she calls the “Uncertainty Monster”[2]in projecting future climate trends, which she calls a “wicked problem.”[3] Curry also hosts a popular science blog in which she writes on topics related to climate science and the science-policy interface.[4]

This document which casts doubts on the amount of certainty the IPCC has attached to anthropogenic climate change has generated little media attention. This is interesting since one would think people would care about what the smartest people think about the most important issue of the day. Media coverage was scant except from

suggests that the stasis can be attributed in part to “internal variability.” Yet climate models imply that a 15-year stasis is very rare (von Storch et al., 2013, available at http://www.academia.edu/4210419/Can_climate_models_explain_the_recent_stagnation_in_global_warming ) and models cannot reproduce the observed GMST even with the observed radiative forcing [See figure immediately below from the AR5 WG1 report]. • Some have suggested (e.g., Meehl et al., Nature Climate Change 1, 360 (2011)] that the “missing heat”o Are deep ocean observations sufficient in coverage and precision to bear on this hypothesis quantitatively? o Why would the heat sequestration have “turned on” at the turn of this century? o What could make it “turn off” and when might that occur? o Is there any mechanism that would allow the added heat in the deep ocean to reappear in the atmosphere? 8 is going into the deep ocean, causing mK temperature rises. [IPCC quoted above notes “…a possible redistribution of heat within the ocean.”]

Oceans have approximately 1000 times the thermal capacity of the atmosphere and are well coupled to the atmosphere through sensible and latent heat transfer. • Is it correct that ocean surface temperature changes have the potential to drive significant changes in GMST? If yes, then we note that Section 3.4.2.1 of the AR5 WG1 report states: The overall uncertainty of the annually averaged global ocean mean [heat flux] for each term is expected to be in the range 10–20%. In the case of the latent heat flux term, this corresponds to an uncertainty of up to 20 W m–2. In comparison, changes in global mean values of individual heat flux components expected as a result of anthropogenic climate change since 1900 are at the level of <2 W m–2. • With uncertainty in ocean data being ten times larger than the total magnitude of the warming attributed to anthropogenic sources, and combined with the IPCC’s conclusion than it has less than 10% confidence that it can separate long-term trends from regular variability, why is it reasonable to conclude that increases in GMST are attributable to radiative forcing rather than to ocean variability?

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Jason Thompson received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Law & Society from Winona State University where he studied U.S.-Mongolian Foreign Relations 1860-1920. He also attended programs at Hennepin Technical College in Minnesota, Soonchunhyang University in the Republic of Korea and at the University for Peace in Costa Rica. He has a Master of Arts degree from University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he focused on climate control and high-energy x-ray applications. Jason has wrote for Diesel Power and The Costa Rica News.

Nearly 3 billion people rely on open fires and traditional stoves to cook their food. These stoves emit massive amounts of air pollution inside homes.

Globally, household air pollution is the source of 12% of ambient air pollution

9 out of 10 people breathe air that does not comply with World Health Organization air quality guidelines.

Close to 7 million air pollution related deaths occur each year. More than half of these are attributable to household air pollution.

Perhaps if more of the 1.5 trillion that goes into the climate change industry was directed towards more reachable goals the air would be cleaner.

An inconvenient truth: ‘Climate change industry’ now a $1.5 trillion global business

The plaintive calls about global warming and loss of polar bear habitats, the stern warnings about rising seas and flooded coastlines – this is what the public hears about. Then there’s this pesky, inconvenient truth they don’t hear about: $1.5 trillion.

“Interest in climate change is becoming an increasingly powerful economic driver, so much so that some see it as an industry in itself whose growth is driven in large part by policymaking, notes Don Jergler, an analyst for Insurance Journal, an industry publication

“The $1.5 trillion global ‘climate change industry’ grew at between 17 and 24 percent annually from 2005-2008, slowing to between 4 and 6 percent following the recession with the exception of 2011’s inexplicable 15 percent growth, according to Climate Change Business Journal,” he writes.

“The San Diego, Calif.-based publication includes within that industry nine segments and 38 sub-segments. This encompasses sectors like renewables, green building and hybrid vehicles.

7 Amazing Things America Could Have Bought Instead of a $1.45 Trillion Jet

The mission of Biogas Experts Tropical is to develop business models focused on public sanitation blocks or units for densely populated urban and rural areas, agro industries, institutions, and waste management and treatment facilities for governments and international development partners. We support projects that produce biogas and bio fertilizers from organic waste material for the energy and agricultural markets. We also help produce clean biogas fuel for household and commercial electrical generation, lighting and cooking systems, as well as for institutions that operate in various industries, including boilers and laundry service enterprises. Our goal is to help increase agricultural production by at least 15% in every country in Africa, and to eliminate billions of tons of global climate change emissions, while displacing more harmful cooking fuels with cleaner ones.

Biogas Experts Tropical aims to work with the Alliance and its partners in the African continent to conduct research into biomass substrate or feedstock sources from various collection points, including households, businesses, institutions, slaughter houses, agro-industries, farms, markets, bus stations, lorry parks, and sanitation facilities. These sources can be converted into fuel through an anaerobic bio-digester treatment facility to produce biogas as a clean cooking fuel to benefit the health and environment of Ghanaian households. This process can also help establish a bio-fertilizer production line to create fertilizers that can be sold to agriculture, seedlings, and horticulture farmers in Ghana. We work with Alliance partners such as GIZ and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology to support, build, and pilot biogas systems and projects in Ghana, including a collaborative program with the Ejura Sekyere Odumasi Municipal Assembly.

Biogas serves as a foundation for a renewable energy revolution. Biogas, a completely clean and renewable fuel, creates many social and environmental benefits. Installing biogas systems for clean cooking and for onsite waste treatment and management facilities helps reduce medical and health related costs, mitigate forest degradation and climate emissions, and generate livelihoods and employment opportunities. Biogas Experts Tropical partners such as the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) and the Wisconsin International University College have already helped to advance important progress within the biogas sector by building biogas plants that have saved costs and improved the sanitation, health, and environment for household users in Ghana.

Biogas Experts Tropical will continue working with clean cooking partners to advance the biogas revolution in Africa. To learn more, please contact Paul Edward Kartey, a former trainer and supervisor of course participants at the Renewable Energy Education Program (REEP) Energy Center, College of Engineering-Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)-Kumasi, and now CEO of Biogas Experts Tropical at capitalwisdom@yahoo.com.

The plaintive calls about global warming and loss of polar bear habitats, the stern warnings about rising seas and flooded coastlines – this is what the public hears about. Then there’s this pesky, inconvenient truth they don’t hear about: $1.5 trillion.

“Interest in climate change is becoming an increasingly powerful economic driver, so much so that some see it as an industry in itself whose growth is driven in large part by policymaking, notes Don Jergler, an analyst for Insurance Journal, an industry publication

“The $1.5 trillion global ‘climate change industry’ grew at between 17 and 24 percent annually from 2005-2008, slowing to between 4 and 6 percent following the recession with the exception of 2011’s inexplicable 15 percent growth, according to Climate Change Business Journal,” he writes.

“The San Diego, Calif.-based publication includes within that industry nine segments and 38 sub-segments. This encompasses sectors like renewables, green building and hybrid vehicles.

And the talkers, creatives and handlers too.

“That also includes the climate change consulting market, which a recent report by the journal estimates at $1.9 billion worldwide and $890 million in the U.S.,” Mr. Jergler says.

This looks interesting I would like to attend. Below is the press release.

The course is designed to be a practical and hands-on workshop, allowing space for sharing and peer-to-peer learning.

Facilitators:

The course is led by Mohit Mukherjee, Founding Director of the UPEACE Centre for Executive Education. Mr. Mukherjee has lived and worked in three continents holding leadership roles in the private sector, in nonprofit organizations, and universities. He is the Director of UPEACE’s Centre for Executive Education, which he founded in 2006. In this role he has led over 40 seminars in seven countries on themes ranging from ‘Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Social Change’ to ‘Beyond Traditional Leadership’

Mr. Mukherjee has a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University. He did his Master’s at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, also taking courses at Harvard Business School focusing on social enterprise.

Co-Facilitated by:Miguel Tello – is the director of the Strachan Foundation, a family foundation in Costa Rica that supports education and health programs throughout Central America. In addition, he is a certified trainer for the International Institute for Restorative Practices.

Course Cost $895 Corporate

Enroll with a colleague each will receive a 15% discount. Contact us for groups of 3 or more.10% Discount Academics and NGO’sCentre alumni receive a discount

All participants will be awarded a

Want to find or work further with your ‘WHY’ and purpose? Want to better understand your personal talents and signature strengths? Want to reflect on your leadership style and be inspired? Come and join us at a unique place in a magical setting, the UPEACE Campus. Experience connection, co-creation, learning and global networking with a great team facilitators and fellow-participants.

This seminar focuses on a human paradigm of leadership – the ability to connect with people you work with, to see how things look from their perspective, to engage and motivate them appealing to their strengths and passions. The vision of the leader today is that of the “positive” leader who is able to unleash the potential of each individual in the organization.

[The debate over immigration policy in the United States has reached a crescendo in recent years, with particular concern over illegal workers and their impact on social well-being in this country. Yet in the prevailing analysis of this issue, the relationship between immigration and contemporary international trade policy is often overlooked. In particular, few commentators recognize or understand that a significant part of the surge in illegal labor from Mexico–the source of the majority of undocumented workers in the United States—stems from reforms that Mexico undertook in cooperation with the United States to liberalize trade flows across the Mexico-United States border.]

It goes on to say

[This Article seeks to elucidate that relationship by focusing on a particular example: agricultural production in Mexico, especially the production of corn, the staple crop of Mexican farmers. Since 1994, the following interrelationship between international trade rules, labor, and migration has unfolded across the Mexico-United States border: first, corn imports have surged into Mexico from the United States under import policy reforms brought about by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and related economic liberalizations in Mexico; and, second, displaced agricultural labor has migrated out of rural Mexico into Mexican cities, maquiladoras, and, not infrequently, the United States.]

In the global economy, trade is not conducted between equals; those with access to the unlimited credit of financialization can outbid domestic capital for assets, labor and political favors.

The mobility and scale of capital give it outsized influence in small, credit-starved local markets.

Mobile capital, with its essentially unlimited line of credit, can overwhelm the local political system, buying favors and cutting deals to limit costs and competition. Local elites are soon co-opted, and people starved for cash income are easily recruited as labor.

On November 4, 2016, the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) announced an investment of $1 billion over the next ten years, to develop and accelerate the commercial deployment of innovative low emissions technologies.

OGCI Climate Investments (OGCI CI) will aim to deploy successfully-developed new technologies among member companies and beyond. It will also identify ways to cut the energy intensity of both transport and industry. Working in partnership with like-minded initiatives across all stakeholder groups and sectors, the OGCI CI believes its emission reduction impact can be multiplied across industries.”

In a joint statement, the heads of the 10 oil and gas companies that comprise the OGCI said: “The creation of OGCI Climate Investments shows our collective determination to deliver technology on a large-scale that will create a step change to help tackle the climate challenge. We are personally committed to ensuring that by working with others our companies play a key role in reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases, while still providing the energy the world needs.”

This investment represents an unprecedented level of oil and gas industry collaboration and resource-sharing in this space. This new, additional investment will complement the companies’ existing low emissions technology programs and will draw on the collective expertise and resources of the member companies.

Through discussions with stakeholders and detailed technical work, the OGCI has identified two initial focus areas: accelerating the deployment of carbon capture, use and storage; and reducing methane emissions from the global oil and gas industry in order to maximize the climate benefits of natural gas. The OGCI believes that these are areas where the oil and gas industry has meaningful influence and where its collaborative work can have the greatest impact.

Beyond this, OGCI CI will make investments that support improving energy and operational efficiencies in energy-intensive industries. OGCI CI will also work closely with manufacturers to increase energy efficiency in all modes of transportation.

A CEO and management team for OGCI Climate Investments will be announced in the near future. The closing of OGCI Climate Investments is subject to customary conditions including regulatory clearances as required.

Demand-driven production of liquid fuels from regenerative energy sources is a major element of the energy turnaround. Production of synthetic fuels from solar energy and carbon dioxide extracted from air is the objective of the SOLETAIR project started now by INERATEC, a spinoff of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), in cooperation with Finnish partners. Together, the partners plan to take into operation the first chemical pilot plant worldwide. It is so compact that it fits into a ship container and produces gasoline, diesel, and kerosene from regenerative hydrogen and carbon dioxide.